CRN-I aims for new audience with supplement quality seminar set in Australia

The Council for Responsible Nutrition — International will reach a new audience with its annual supplement quality seminar with this year’s event set for Brisbane, Australia in October.

The new venue was determined by the location of this year’s meeting of the Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS). CRN’s one-day event, titled “A Quality Dietary Supplement: Before You Start and After It’s Marketed,” is set for October 16.

Supply chain focus

“The event has a focus on the supply chain,” James Griffiths, PhD told NutraIngreidents-USA. Griffiths is CRN-I’s vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs. “The agenda of speakers is heavier on industry experts. It’s really aimed toward the global manufacture of dietary supplements and the global source of ingredients, and a lot of the ingredients in supplements come from Asia.”

The meeting in the past has been held in conjunction with CODEX meetings in Germany, and attracted regulators and other attendees primarily from North America and Europe. While these are significant markets for dietary supplements and are the sources of influential regulatory regimes, Griffiths said CRN-I was seeking to reach a new audience.

“It was more a matter of finding the right audience and that was a matter of choosing the right site (for the meeting),” Griffiths said. “In Australia we can tap into some speakers from China and some Australian speakers.”

The hope, too, is that the meeting can have some influence on those countries where dietary supplement regulations are still some flux. Griffiths mentioned Malyasia and Indonesia as prime examples of placing where US dietary supplement regulations might serve as a jumping off point for authorities in those countries as they complete their regulatory regime.

“I would hope that if (US regulations) do not provide a verabtim model, they do at least demonstrate a model for these regions like Malaysia or Indonesia of a science-based system. I think the US model is as good if not better than others (like the European system) if only because it has more history behind it,” Griffiths said.

Industry experts

The speaker list for this event in the past has skewed heavily toward regulators who were either speaking at or attending the associated Codex meeting. This year there are more speakers from industry. Prominent among them is Vasiloz (Bill) Frankos, formerly head of FDA’s Division of Dietary Supplements Programs and now the senior vice president for global product science, safety and compliance for Herbalife. Joining him are Mark LeDoux of Natural Alternatives International and Darren Dziedziczak of Australian supplements firm Blackmores. On the regulators’ side, Laura Kelley, PhD of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration will deliver the keynote address.

“We wanted to include more experts from industry. They are the ones who have to source and deal with these supply chain complexities,” Griffiths said.

Details of the meeting and an agenda can be seen here
. More more infomation on registration interested parties can contact Griffiths or Haiuyen Nguyen crnsymposium@crn-i.ch.

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